


Creative

by FleaBee



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Crafts, Dysfunctional Family, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 18:51:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: A passing fancy of leads to bonding in an unexpected way between Arnold and his mother.





	Creative

**Author's Note:**

> It is intentional that Arnold gets a certain fact incorrect in this story.

From the stairway young Arnold watched as his mother lay out the table with items that he didn't even know she owned. She had the table covered in craft supplies of all things. He'd dreamed of having a mother who would do a craft with him who would sit down and teach him to make colourful pages of painting, collage, dioramas and other arty projects. Like Mrs Petersen his Sunday school teacher. Mother, however, was not a crafty person unless you counted the creative ways she tried to keep her affairs secret. Neither of his parents was creative especially father, he did not have a creative bone in his body. He was convinced he had to be adopted since he was very creative and was creative with how to hide his creativity from his parents, especially his father who was always scolding him when his creativity was discovered.

He continued watching from the banister, hoping his mother didn't notice him. Why would his mother who forbid creative endeavours lay out the table with craft supplies? She had glues, scissors, colourful paper. So many colourful papers of different types that he could do so much with if he was allowed. He wanted to ask his mother. He went running through the house and checked every single room to make sure they really were alone so he could ask. His father didn't like him asking questions, and he was taught to follow what he was shown and not to question anything or face punishment. His mother didn't often report his mistakes to his father especially his question asking unless they were serious mistakes.

Father wouldn't be home anytime soon, he along with Uncle Frank had taken Howard away for a boys weekend. He'd been hoping that this year he'd be allowed to go since Frank was no longer attending, now in the Space Corps with John and previous years he'd been too young to participate in himself. He'd even had the courage to ask father if he could go this year and his father had laughed at him. He didn't understand why his father laughed. It wasn't a funny question. He gripped the rails tight and tried to push back his anger at his father, his own father didn't consider him one of the boys. He was nine years old! John had been going on these trips since he was six and the Frank and Howard started going on these trips when they were eight. He didn't think his father would ever consider him one of the boys no matter how old he got. He was always the one that was left with his mother.

He thought with Frank no longer at home that his father would start paying attention to him. But that didn't happen, it just meant that Howard had all of the attention. No matter what he did, he was just wet little Arnie who needed to keep his Mummsie company so she wouldn't be lonely. Ha, what a joke. She hadn't paid any attention to him at all since his father and brother had left as long as he was quiet and didn't leave a mess he could do whatever he wanted. His mother had different company over every single day and night ever since father and brother had gone camping. He knew that he was not allowed to talk about the men who kept his father's bed warm while away.

All he wanted was to be included with the rest of the family when they did stuff together. He could go camping in the outdoors, it wouldn't scare him, well too much. He was frightened of the dark since before he could remember and bugs ever since his brothers tied him to the ground and tipped jam and ants all over him and snakes but it was normal to be scared of snakes, they could kill you! His brothers had told him that bears and tigers and other big scary animals roamed the reserve they were heading to for camping, and he didn't want to be anywhere those animals, but he was pretty sure his brothers were lying, he hoped. The moon his family was camping on was not far away from Io at the moment which made the travel costs a lot cheaper and quicker. It was one of the moons in the Jupiter belt that had been terraformed just for camping, and he hoped that father or mother wouldn't ask him the name of the moon because he could not remember. He couldn't remember all Jupiter's moons besides the one that he lived on Io, and Titan because they had a zoo which he'd been to on a field trip earlier in the year and Calypso where John was based.

 The doorbell rang distracting Arnold from his musings. He didn't even get a chance to ask his mother about all the craft supplied. He stood up and started running down the stairs hoping that Mummy hadn't seen that he'd been sitting on the stairs watching her as he went to get the door. She always got angry at him when he watched her. Said it was unnatural and creepy, but all he wanted was for his mother to hug him and be like the other mothers at school.

"Arnold, can you get the door," His mother called out from the kitchen where she was fussing over something.

"Yes mother," he replied, not bothering to tell her that he was doing just that without her asking.

Maybe John and Frank had stopped by to visit. They were meant to be coming for a short visit very soon. They didn't have enough leave to go camping, but they were still planned to be stopping by to check on mother.

With a smile on his face, he opened the door, the smile stayed on his face when he saw it was some of the women from Church. His Sunday school teacher was with them and she'd always been kind to him, and his mother was nicer to him around these ladies.

"Good morning Mrs Petersen, Miss Roberts and Mrs James," Arnold greeted the woman as politely as possible, hoping that he'd done it right.

The all looked him up and down, seeming to approve of his greeting, his hair and his attire. He didn't have Howard or the other boys from school picking on him so he could keep his clothes free of grass stains and dirt and his hair orderly.

"Good morning to you as well Arnold," Mrs Petersen greeted him warmly. A smile that was reserved just for the children of her Sunday school lessons.

She'd had words with his father when Arnold had been prevented from attending Sunday school on his birthday that year despite the fact that all the other children attended until they were twelve and Howard still went to Sunday school. He missed Sunday school, it was the only time he was allowed to colour, paint and other crafts, play and listen to stories. Sometimes Mrs Petersen even let him tell the stories himself when he was still allowed to attend. His favourite thing of all had been the Sunday School Nativity that was held every year. Even if he did have to play Mary two years in a row because all the girls wanted to be Angels, well except for his cousin Alice who had played the part of Joseph the first year he was Mary and a Wiseman the second time because she didn't want to be married to her cousin again. The family always said that Alice would have made a better boy then he did. That he was the one that should have been born a girl and he wished they could swap genders with one another then maybe he would be allowed to do the Nativity still and be allowed to like arts and crafts, and perhaps mummy would want to spend more time with him.

"Please come in," Arnold stood to the side, allowing the woman who all had craft supplies to enter the house. He looked at the craft supplies with interesting wondering what they were all doing. They went through to where his mother was set up. She greeted them warmly, like old friends. These were the same woman that his mother complained about behind their backs.

He took a seat waiting for his mother to notice and tell him to leave. No one even looked his way as the other woman pulled out more craft supplies, photos and photo albums. The woman finished setting up when they finally noticed him.

"I think you'll have fun with us today, Arnold," Mrs Petersen said with her normal kind smile. "We're scrapbooking."

Arnold looked towards his mother who had taken the seat next to him. She wasn't telling him to leave, she was allowing him to stay something that never happened, and he knew would not happen if his father had been home. He turned back towards Mrs Petersen, "What is scrapbooking?"

He thought a scrapbook was something that he'd done at Io House of all his projects in his early years of school at Io House. He'd been so proud of his book of artwork, handwriting and other creative projects. He had a certificate for his paintings and an award for the best handwriting and colouring in his year level. He'd showed his parents so proud of his work and was just waiting for the moment of praise he had desired even at that young age. He had done well for himself just like his older brothers. He watched with excitement as his father flipped through the entire book, growing disappointment on his face on each page turn. Arnold thought he'd be happy when he got to the handwriting certificate.

He'd cried for days when his father threw the book in the fire and told him he wouldn't have a sissy artist with girly handwriting in the family and that he needed to pull the rest of his marks up the next school year.

Mrs Petersen was leading a scrapbooking group the church ladies had decided to take up and today was their first get together. Arnold had to agree that he liked the sound of the craft project that she was explaining. He was amazed that someone who wasn't a professional could come up with such beautiful thing to do with photos.

He flipped through each page looking at the different photos of Mrs Petersens family. Her children were a lot older then he was so he didn't know them well. The colourful pages told a story that was even more entertaining because of the art Mrs Petersen had created. Reading through each snippet of her holidays and different family events had him wondering if it was made up what they did. It just seemed to good to be true that someone could have such wonderful holidays and that all her children were included on the holidays, it was nothing at all like his own family.

"We'll start with this simple page since no one else has done any scrapbooking before," Mrs Petersen said to the group of ladies and started explaining what they would be doing.

Arnold looked at his mother in surprise when she pushed a pile of photos and craft supplies in his direction. He browsed through the photo's wondering who they were of, he'd never seen that baby or child before. It was only when he saw the toddler with his bear Julius that he figured out that it was him, he was seeing baby photo's of himself for the first time. He was so overwhelmed by his photo's that he missed the first lot of instructions. Mrs Petersen was kind enough to go over everything with him again, slower this time. He wished that he had her as a teacher at Io House, none of the school teachers ever went over and explained what he missed or didn't understand.

The colourful pieces of paper came together as he cut them to size, positioned them on the cardboard and glued them down when he was satisfied with their placement. He picked up his photo's, placing them and working out what looked best before cutting photo's to size and even giving some of them interesting shapes not precisely following what Mrs Petersen instructed them to do. He hoped that he wouldn't get in trouble for not following the instructions. He always got in trouble at school when he didn't do exactly what the teachers requested.

His mother and the other woman chattered as their pages also came together. Time flew by quickly and before long the scrapbooking lesson was over. The other woman packed away their own craft supplies. His mother told them all not to worry about the mess that she would clean it up which translated to Arnold cleaning everything up after everyone left. Arnold didn't care, it was the most fun he'd had with his mother in his entire life.

He put his pages and his mothers aside and picked up all the offshoots of paper, sneaking some of the bigger pieces away so he could use them later. Throwing everything away that he couldn't use, wiping down the table and finally vacuuming the floor. He placed both pages to the side, wishing that he could get away with hiding pages. He expected his mother to throw out his page like his father always did. Like what had happened to everything else creative that he'd ever done. Instead, to his surprise, she placed his page in her new scrapbook next to the page of John that his mother had done.

He grinned and beamed as he saw that his page had been kept. That his mother even smiled a very slight smile as she put the book away. This was the best day of his life, and he had a skip in his step for the rest of the day.

 

Another Saturday rolled around. His father and brother were not yet home from their camping trip, and he was yet to see his oldest brothers who were supposed to visit. Once again his mother set up the table for craft, allowing him to help set everything up. When the doorbell rang, he raced to the door to great everyone, eager to start. His mother had actually invited him to join the woman this time. He was bouncing in his seat as everyone spent some time setting everything up as they caught up with one another.

He was hardly able to contain his excitement when Mrs Petersen had everyone listen to her to start the lesson. This time Arnold was given photo's of his brother Howard while his mother worked on photos of Frank.

Arnold glanced over the colourful papers of blue and browns with different textures. He wanted to go off and do his own thing, create his own art but he continued listening to Mrs Petersen's instructions. If he didn't hear he would end up in trouble and then his mother wouldn't let him join in again. The craft day flew by so fast.

After everyone had left and the room was once again tidy, Arnold watched as his mother placed his scrapbook page of Howard into the same book as the week before. Once his mother was gone and distracted elsewhere with a man he knew his father didn't like, he went and opened the scrapbook, to look over both his pages and his mother's pages. He wanted to do more. He tried to make it look like he was included with his family in paper even if he wasn't in real life. Giving himself the life he always wanted, an included life.

 

He got to attend most of the scrapbooking lessons since he lived close to the school. He and Howard were home from boarding school on the weekends. Howard spent the time he and his mother was doing craft lessons playing with the other boys in the area. Howard didn't want to be around boring old ladies who changed from week to week, excluding Mrs Petersen.

After the end of the second month, Arnold had been encouraged to go in his own direction by Mrs Petersen. The first time he'd been so nervous that he was going to get in trouble. He gulped and hoped that his mother wouldn't stop him from coming home on weekends or even worse allow him to go home but not allow him to participate. Instead, he was praised by the woman at how creative he was with his page and that he should go on his own more often.

After everyone had left, he sat and waited for the scolding from his mother, but it never came; instead, she went and put the page in the album like normal. He was about to leave when his mother turned towards him.

"Arnold," her voice stopped him in his track she never used his name unless he was in trouble, but it wasn't the same tone she used when he was in trouble. "You probably are aware of this already, I feel it needs to be said. Do not let your father know that you are attending scrapbooking with me and whatever you do, don't mention these are your pages, especially this one." She pointed to the page that he'd done that day.

"Yes mother," He eagerly agreed. He didn't want to watch his pages being burnt which is what would happen if his father ever found out.

He was so happy and proud that his mother had kept his pages. That was as close to praise as it got from his mother, and he felt included keeping a secret with his mother from his father. His mother had practically told him he was good at something and it left him feeling happy, a feeling he thought he would never experience on a regular basis.

 

Midway through the third month of scrapbooking weekends his Uncle Frank, Aunt Marge his twin cousins Sarah and Alice and two of his brothers were staying with them. Arnold looked towards the scrapbooking books with a heavy sigh. With family visiting even if his mother still did scrapbooking he wouldn't be allowed to participate. Aunt Marge and the two girls would be allowed to have fun scrapbooking and he'd either be expected to stay home alone in his room. He hoped that his Uncle Frank would tell stories about his time in the Space Corps. He always enjoyed listening to Uncle Frank. His uncle was his hero and the only family member that paid him any attention. He was always giving him hugs, patting him on the back and compliments that he never heard from any other member of his family.

"Marge, will you mind my two boys?" his mother asked. "I have a prior appointment I'd arranged for this weekend."

"Of course I can watch the boys, Arlene. You'll behave won't you Arnold," Aunt Marge asked him in a sweet voice. She was a monster once everyone else was gone. He hated being alone with his aunt.

"Yes Aunt Marge," Arnold said meekly.

"I meant Howard and John. Oh and keep an eye on my Frank if he turns up. Those boys are always getting themselves into trouble. I need Arnold to carry my craft supplies."

Arnold looked at his mother, a disbelieving beam coming to his face. He didn't have to stay behind with nasty Aunt Marge or his bully brothers. He would still get to go with mother for craft and without Sarah and Alice as well. He hoped that Sarah would be alright without him around. Howard liked to pick on Sarah while he wasn't around.

"Really, you want me to watch your adult son? John can look after himself as can your Frank, he is the most sensible of your children," Aunt Marge started to argue with his mother. Arnold escaped grabbing all his mother's craft supplies and her scrapbook so he could get away from the fighting.

"Everything is packed mother," Arnold interrupted the argument. His mother looked relieved to be getting away from her sister-in-law.

His mother had to double check everything. In the end, he had everything that he and his mother would need. He still couldn't believe that he'd been piled into the car with the craft supplies. He smirked at John who looked like he wanted to escape as Sarah and Alice both hung off him.

When they arrived at Mrs Petersens, Arnold took a chance to look around. It wasn't often he got to visit other families that he wasn't related to. He carried what they would be using into the house. Mrs Petersen greeting him fondly. His eyes went wide as he looked around the house. While the outside looked just like every other house in the street, the inside was like nothing Arnold had ever seen before.

There was clutter everywhere. Papers, punchers, stamps, pens, fabrics and other items that he couldn't place. In every nook and cranny, there were art supplies with the occasional Sunday school supplies.

Arnold had never seen so much stuff like this in his life. The Rimmer family home was so neat and organised with not an item out of place. Mrs Petersens house was still organised but some of the things she had together he would not have together.

He sat down at the large table that had been freed up for them. There were more supplies than usual on the table. He was already working out what he would be able to do with the photo's his mother had put aside for him to scrapbook that day.

"Go ahead and pick whatever you want," Mrs Petersen encouraged him. He looked towards his mother for permission. She wasn't paying any attention to him and was talking to Mrs James.

Arnold looked at the pages with longing before he decided that he would do as Mrs Petersen suggested and be as creative as possible with his page. He may never get another chance since it wasn't often he left his house.

"Can I use this one please?" He asked Mrs Petersen when he found something that would go nicely with his current project."

"Of course Arnold. That one looks lovely, it brings out the flowers in the photo. Is that your mother's garden?" Mrs Petersen asked.

"It's my grandmother's garden on Earth," Arnold replied. He hated the crazy old bat, his mother's mother. She had the most lovely garden that he escaped to every single time he went to Earth and visited his mother's family.

Arnold got to work, drowning out the rest of the conversation around him as he organised his papers and photos until he had something that he was satisfied with. He glued all the photo's once he was happy. The lesson flew by and before he knew it he was getting told he needed to finish up because it was home time.

The woman all praised him when he was done, his mother even smiled at him when she put them into her album with her own photo's a smile that he was starting to realise was reserved just for him. He'd never seen her smile that that at his older brothers. He always returned the smile, and it left him craving the next smile since they were usually far between.

 

At the end of the sixth month of scrapbooking lessons, his mother had grown bored as had all the other woman excluding Mrs Petersen. Arnold had noticed each week there was less and less of the woman attending. His mother hadn't missed a week yet, but there didn't seem to be any point in continuing on if no one else was interested.

"Well this is our last scrapbooking class together," Mrs Petersen announced what Arnold had feared. "We need to make the most of it."

Arnold did just that, making the best page that he'd ever made since he probably wouldn't get a chance to ever do it again.

 

Arnold nibbled on a biscuit in the corner hoping that no one would notice him. His brother Frank had brought home his fiancé for wedding planning. It was actually the first time Arnold had met the woman his brother was going to marry. Janine was the most beautiful woman Arnold had ever seen, he'd fallen for her at first sight. But he couldn't have her, she was going to be his new sister. He didn't know what to do with his feelings, he'd never felt like this for another person before and was finding it hard to ignore the crushing feeling in his chest.

"Mrs Rimmer, these pages are lovely," Janine complimented with a French accent that was making Arnold melt.

"Call me Arlene, I am going to be your mother in law one day." His mother said.

"Arlene, these pages are just lovely," Janine complemented his mother once again.

"Thank you, dear. It was a passing phase many years ago. I have no interest in scrapbooking anymore," mother said with boredom.

"Do you think that you could possibly find any inspiration for mine and Frank's wedding photo's for after we get married?" Janine asked hopefully. Arnold's ears perked up. It had been many years since he'd been scrapbooking with his mothers' friends. But he'd sometimes make do with what he had to make pages that he gave to his mother sometimes. Usually for presents for mother's day and her birthday that he gave to her in secret.

"Frank, just look at this page of your family dog, it' just fantastic," Janine said as she flipped through the book.

Arnold tried to push back a blush at the compliment to one of his pages.

"And this graduation page of Frank, the colours bring out his eyes and make him look more handsome then he normally looks."

Arnold continued nibbling on his biscuit trying to hide a smile, that was another one of his pages. He was proud of that picture since it was one of his first solo pages.

Mother looked in his direction. He hoped that mother could read his hopeful expression and tell that he wanted to do Janine's wedding pictures. In secret of course.

"I believe that I can find the inspiration to do your wedding pictures, Janine. Anything for my Frankie and my new daughter." Mother said looking in Arnold's direction as she spoke the words that Arnold had hoped to hear.

While Janine was chatting excitedly about possible ideas, mother sent one of her smiles in his direction that was reserved for him and a look that said, don't tell anyone that he was the one that would be doing all the scrapbook pages. He already knew that without it being said, he never would while his father was alive after all his father would burn the pages and make an example of him in front of his brothers and his new sister.

 

Three million years into the future, Arnold Rimmer sat down with a pile of photo's he'd just finished printing from his mother's last letter she'd set to him. It was the letter informing him that his father had died and she wished for him to do up several pages for the funeral and the dates for the funeral.

The requests had started with Janine and Frank's wedding, and they had been so well received that his mother was asked for more. Then he got promotion and graduation pictures from his brothers to do up, he was assuming it was mother rubbing it into his face that he wasn't doing well at school that he didn't graduate with honours like Howard and that he wasn't getting promotions like Frank and John.

Then it was pictures of Franks kids when they were born, started school and other milestones.

He wished that he was included with the rest of the family with everything that he was requested to scrapbook. He felt like he was an outsider looking in when he looked at photos of his own family.

He hadn't been able to scrapbook his father's photos when they arrived, he hadn't had a physical body. Then when he got a physical body, the photos had been back on the Red Dwarf, and he was on Starbug. He'd spent years away from the ship, and this was the first time he had a chance to scrapbook.

He had to get away from Ace and what was a better way of getting away from Ace then scrapbooking the last lot of family photo's he would ever do from his old life. He was never going to make father proud of him. He was probably turning in his grave knowing that it was his son who did all the family scrapbook pages and not his mother.

He finished the final page and put it away. It would never make it into his mother's album. With that, he put the scrapbooking aside, after all, what did he have left to scrapbook.

 

"Lister, what are you doing?" Arnold asked Dave. He looked like he had a preschool project on the table with the scissors, glue and coloured paper.

"I'm making a father's day card for me dad," Dave replied happily gluing a card together.

"But you're your own father, you'd just be giving them to yourself. What's the point?"

"It's fun." Dave continued gluing as he spoke. "You should sit down and try it sometime. Just doing arts and crafts like a kid, it's really relaxing. I used to make cards for me Gran and dad all the time when they were alive."

"I have something else I need to do first," Arnold walk off without an explanation. Dave had probably been expecting a lecture about the mess he was making. Seeing Dave making cards had awoken something in him that he wished he hadn't put aside. Something he could have been doing for years.

He walked to his locker and got out all the craft supplies that he still had, loading them into a trolley that he had nearby. He took walked himself to a lift to the shopping district and walked into the craft shop that he hadn't been in since before the accident. The shop was tidy like everything else on the ship. He couldn't see evidence that Dave had been down here so he must have got his supplies from somewhere else.

He set everything up seeing what he owned and everything in the shop that was his for the taking. Arts and craft was a hobby that many of the crew did since it was something that you could do from the comfort of your own room. Many people took up something crafty. He'd even attended a craft class from time to time when he needed the downtime from his failing career, and he'd been surprised the first time he'd participated finding that it was an even mix of men and woman.

Scrapbooking was something that he had enjoyed as a child. And Dave reminded him that it was something that he could still do now. He still had a life that he could scrapbook. He didn't need to scrapbook a life he never got to live, looking through it like a window. He could scrapbook his life with Lister, Kryten and Cat. He had lived a life, he had been a part of a life. He could scrapbook his favourite moments on the ship. Heck, he could even scrapbook all the photo's he'd taken of the diesel deck. Maybe with everything in a scrapbook, Lister would be able to see and appreciate the ingenuity of the workings of the ship.

He needed to stop obsessing over his failures and look at the positives in his life. Scrapbook the positives, so he had something to look at to remind himself when he was feeling the most depressed.

The shopping district craft shop was where Dave found Arnold many hours later with a few completed pages, and photo's arranged all over the table of their more pleasant adventures together. The hologram looking more cheerful and content then Dave had ever seen him before.

 

Arlene Rimmer looked at the album full of completed scrapbook pages, it was open to one of the few photos that features her youngest son Arnold. Regret was filling her, why hadn't she got him to complete more pages with himself for her? He was always scrapbooking in his free time on her behalf and not once did she consider asking him to do pages dedicated to himself. All she had was his baby photos and a couple of school photos, the only dedicated pages. Everything else was photo's he happened to be in. His brothers had dozens of pages. Now it was to late.

"Mother, you can always scrapbook more of Arnolds photo's," Janine said in a gentle voice, wiping some tears away for her before they could fall on the scrapbook page.

"No, I can't. I can't scrapbook without following someone else's guidance. Arnold's the one who did all these pages. It was our secret, from father. He never would have approved. Arnold was so much like me, more than your Frank and the other two boys. He was my baby boy.  A mother should never outlive their baby."

"You can always find someone to help you create the pages of Arnold that he deserves," Janine suggested a gentle hand on her knee.

"I won't do them myself, but I know someone who will," Arlene made a phone call to her old friend and Arnold's Sunday school teacher. The one who had taught her boy to scrapbook in the first place. She would give her son a scrapbook album that would sit just as proudly with the photos of the rest of her family.


End file.
